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August 16, 2011

How to Turn Best Practices Into Success

There is not one of the industry's best practices you cannot deploy, though there are a lot of them

A best practice is a technique, method, process, activity, incentive, or reward that is believed to be more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc. when applied to a particular condition or circumstance. -- Wikipedia

There really is no “secret to success” except this: Those who make it to the end of the rainbow and become millionaires themselves deploy more best practices than those who only glimpse or dream about the rainbow.

That’s why I am devoting this blog to best practices. I want to help you get there.

Best Practices 2011

In a recent article in Research Magazine entitled "Best Practices 2011," I announced a survey to determine the best practices today. My first report on this survey will be published September 1 in Research.

(Survey respondents, by the way, will receive a complete report on the survey and, when published, my “enhanced ebook,” “Making Referrals Happen.” You can still take the survey here.)

In that article, I detailed the categories of the survey. These categories are what I will write about in "Good's Best Practices Blog."

The very top producers I know — I’m thinking of two right now who each produce north of $10 million in fees and commissions — are not quantum leaps smarter, better looking, more charismatic.

They are not investment geniuses. I know plenty of tiny producers just as good at the craft of investing client’s wealth.

Neither is blessed with family connections, a brother who is a sports or movie star, or has an “in” to some organization who sends them bucket loads of 401(k) rollovers.

What makes them different? Look at that list of best practices categories. They do more of these.

There is not one of those best practices you cannot deploy. There are just a lot of them.

That’s what we’ll be talking about in this blog.

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Bill Good is chairman of Bill Good Marketing, Inc. and the author of "Prospecting Your Way to Sales Success" and Hot Prospects. His “Sales Seminar” column appears monthly in Research Magazine. Past copies of his “Good’s Best Practices Blog” are also archived online.